What's Your Problem?
iHeartPodcasts and Pushkin Industries
Every week on What's Your Problem?, former Planet Money host Jacob Goldstein talks with entrepreneurs and engineers tackling the biggest challenges at the forefront of technology. How do you make a trip to space as routine as a plane flight? How do you turn solar energy into clean fuel? How do you use AI to stop deadly infections before they spread? We hear a lot these days about how the world is getting worse. What's Your Problem? learns from the thinkers and doers trying to make our future better.
iHeartMedia is the exclusive podcast partner of Pushkin Industries.
iHeartMedia is the exclusive podcast partner of Pushkin Industries.
Episodes
Mentioned books
May 12, 2026 • 27min
Welcome to Carbon Cowboys | From Drilled
Felipe Sabrina, a reporter for The Intercept Brasil who helped produce the Portuguese version, shares reporting from Brazil. He discusses how U.S. ethanol interests expand into Brazilian agribusiness. He describes monoculture boomtowns, local philanthropy tied to industry, and the political and land deals that enabled a cross-border carbon fuel push.
May 7, 2026 • 33min
Building a Business on the Moon
Rob Meyerson, co-founder and CEO of Interlune and former long-time president of Blue Origin, outlines building a lunar economy. He discusses mining helium-3 from regolith, in-space manufacturing and cryogenic processing, and the tech demos and return systems needed to bring moon-sourced materials back to Earth.
8 snips
Apr 30, 2026 • 41min
Building a Robot People Actually Want
Aaron Edsinger, co-founder and CEO of Hello Robot and former director of robotics at Google, builds practical home robots. He discusses why simpler, Roomba-like designs can be more useful than humanoids. He explains safety as a physics problem, the data limits for physical AI, teleoperation to mixed autonomy, pricing and real-world buyers, and modest design choices that enable useful deployments.
7 snips
Apr 23, 2026 • 37min
Turning Waste Wood Into Buildings
Ben Christensen, co-founder and CEO of Cambium, turns fallen and salvaged trees into scalable building material. He talks about creating demand before supply, building a data layer across a fragmented lumber market, coordinating salvage with local sawmills and truckers, and using cross-laminated timber and AI to make reclaimed wood price-competitive and usable at scale.
17 snips
Apr 16, 2026 • 42min
The Great Fusion Debate: How Far Away Are We Really?
Luke Ward, investor shaping long-horizon capital for energy tech. Melanie Windridge, analyst and founder tracking fusion commercialization. Greg Piefer, CEO building fusion-based neutron and isotope businesses. They debate timelines to grid power, near-term commercial neutron markets, AI data center demand, funding scale risks, and the shift from lab breakthroughs to engineered plants.
18 snips
Apr 9, 2026 • 35min
How SharkNinja Keeps Going Viral
Mark Barrocas, CEO of SharkNinja, leads a consumer-products company known for viral kitchen and home appliances. He talks about inventing breakout products, the tradeoffs in product development, how the Ninja Creami became a social-media sensation, seeding creators to kickstart virality, and applying ethnographic research to spot product ideas.
Mar 19, 2026 • 41min
Growing New Livers to Save Lives
Michael Hufford, co-founder and CEO of LyGenesis, is building a way to grow functional livers inside patients using lymph nodes. He discusses the liver's regenerative power. He explains why lymph nodes act as tiny bioreactors and reviews animal data and current human trials. He also covers the injection procedure, safety risks, and the broader future of regenerative medicine.
Mar 12, 2026 • 42min
Can the US Break China's Grip on Rare Earths?
David Abraham, author and rare-earths expert who studies commodities and supply chains, digs into how China built its rare-earth chokehold. He traces the 2010 warning, explains why refining and magnet specs matter more than raw tonnage, and argues electric vehicles could be the lever to rebuild U.S. industrial capacity. He warns rebuilding materials expertise will take years and careful policy.
19 snips
Mar 5, 2026 • 40min
How Quantum Computers Could Change the World
They explore practical applications for quantum machines, from drug discovery to better batteries. The conversation covers neutral‑atom qubits, building a 1,200‑qubit system, and the scaling and error correction challenges. They debate encryption risks, geopolitical competition, and how AI might help control and use quantum hardware.
Feb 26, 2026 • 49min
Fighting Wildfires from Space
Jonny Dyer, founder and CEO of Muon Space who built FireSat to detect fires from orbit. He talks about how smartphone tech made small satellites possible. He describes primitive wildfire mapping and how infrared satellites can spot tiny blazes. He explains low-cost infrared cameras, streaming data for near-real-time alerts, launch plans, and the challenge of getting fire agencies to adopt the system.
